Planning for next year already

At this stage (as always, subject to changes) we think we've worked out what we're going to do next year.
We know that we like puttering along in the canals and we know that the Italian canals don't really cut it when we compare them to the Dutch and French canals. While the beautiful clear (and great temperature) waters of the Mediterranean are awesome to swim in, we kind of miss the 'just tie up to the dock in the middle of town' that happens in Netherlands and France.

So, where to from here?

We had already decided that although there is a lot of Greece that we haven't seen it is probably a lot more of what we have already seen. Islands, mountains, hot, dry, dusty, all that sort of stuff. So as we head south we would be turning right and heading towards France rather than turning left and heading towards Greece.
Next question (and I know you're probably sick of hearing about the really difficult decisions we have to make) was do we go down the Croatian coast or the Italian coast? From all reports there's a whole bunch of nothing on the Italian coast both going south and coming back up the other side. Some really good spots but interspersed by a whole lot of nothing.
Problem with the Croatian side is that when we have got to the bottom we need to cross back to Italy before we go around the bottom and then back up. The crossing is only about 80km but once we've done it we still have about 2,500km to go before we get to the France border.
Or ...... we could put the boat on a truck and do it the fast way.
We've explored the option of just crossing Italy from Venice to Pisa and it's pretty expensive. Apparently each province that you go thru has to be negotiated separately and they all have their own rules. The general consensus seems to be sail your boat to Slovenia, truck thru Austria to France and then get back in the water there.
Or ..... we could just go from Slovenia straight to Germany and then start on the canals and rivers from there.

I've cheated a bit on the map and used Stuttgart but really we're looking at Ludwigsburg which is about 10km north and then cruising up the Neckar River toward the Rhine. From there we can jump across in to the French canals or continue on the Rhine. Who knows? 

Long awaited update

So Belinda started doing some drafts a couple of weeks ago and hasn't progressed any further. She's busy working on some legal thing for Necia so I figured I might as well start to try and catch up while she's busy.
Today (after the clutch has been fixed) we went from Izola where we are for the next couple of weeks to Portoroz. We left here on electric and got all the way there using the electric motor only. Batteries were discharged to 60% when we got there but I was really happy that everything just worked.

The main reason for going was to go to the chandlery (kind of like Bunnings for boats) that we went to last week and return the water pump service kit that was the wrong one. Anyway, we accomplished that and bought more mooring line that Belinda has been wanting for a while and a new Italian flag.
(When you are visiting a country you are supposed to fly a small courtesy flag in addition to your own flag of the country where your boat is registered). The Italian flag that was on the boat when we bought it was well and truly past it's prime. In a couple of weeks when we return to Italy we will need this.
Coming back we used the diesel engine and that worked really well motoring and charging the batteries from 60% up to about 80% and then the generator part seemed to think that the batteries were already fully charged. Anyway, just another job that I'll need to add to the list.
On the way back we stopped at our regular swimming spot for a half hour or so to cool down. Yes that European heatwave you've been hearing about has been pretty warm.
Anyway, a good day finished off with some work and then we'll go out for some dinner soon.